This invention relates to a passenger restraint assembly having a sensor for detecting seat belt tension to indicate the presence of a child restraint seat.
Typically, a motor vehicle will include an air bag system to deploy an air bag cushion to protect passengers in the event of a collision. Air bag cushion deployment must necessarily by quick in order to prevent injury caused by the collision. The speed of deployment of the air bag cushion and the accompanying force of the inflating air bag cushion makes deployment of the air bag cushion to protect small children undesirable. Further, the use of a child restraint seat is not compatible with the intended operation of the air bag system. Although warnings of and prohibitions against the seating of children or the use of child restraint seats where an air bag may deploy are now standard in vehicles equipped with an air bag system, such warning may be ignored, causing undesirable results.
Passive warnings and notices may be supplemented with an active system that senses the type of occupant utilizing the seat and disables air bag deployment based on predetermined criteria. One such system known in the art is a weight based occupant detection system. A weight-based system includes sensors placed in the seat that allow a determination of the weight of the occupant in that seat. Such systems are set to disable the air bag upon a determination that an occupant is below a certain predetermined weight. Such systems work well, however, such a system can be fooled by the placement of child restraint seat over the weight sensors. Typically, the child restraint seat is secured to a seat of a motor vehicle by threading the seat belt around or through the child restraint seat. The seat belt of the motor vehicle does not actually secure the child as is normal when used to secure and adult. Instead the seat belt is used to secure the seat, and then the seat secures the child. Because the seat belt is securing the child restraint seat, it will be pulled tighter than when normally used to secure a human occupant. Pulling of the seat belt tightly around the child restraint seat will provide a large force on the seat, and thereby the weight sensors. Such a force can fool the weight sensor system into believing that a large adult is seated in the passenger seat rather than the child restraint seat and therefore not disable deployment of the air bag cushion.
For these reasons it is desirable and necessary to develop a method and device that can detect and differentiate between the presence of an adult occupant and a child restraint seat such that deployment of the air bag cushion can be disabled when the seat is occupied by a child restraint seat.